Very sad. She sure doesn’t seem very happy about “transitioning”. She sounds defensive, apologetic, and uncertain. Her body language and vocal tone come across as depressed. I wonder how old she is. It would be interesting to know the story behind some of these kids: What do their parents think of this? Have they had counseling or therapy? What sort of doctor would prescribe testosterone for them, or are they getting it on the black market? What kind of peer pressure are they experiencing that would make this look like a good idea? Where did they get the idea of “transition”: Internet, “queer” youth groups, or other places?

In the video she mentions that she’s struggled with this for 14 years, so I’m going to assume she’s 14 or not much older than that (if she assigns conscious memory to herself starting from age 2 or so rather than the simplistic “from birth”). So – high school age, roughly.

There are hordes of F2T around this same age out there on the internet posting pics and similar testimonials, many of them aren’t yet on T (or “out” to their parents) and would be jealous of this video.

Yes. And if it’s this obvious to strangers on the ‘net, imagine the stupidity/greed/carelessness of mental health care professionals who overlook the (usually multiple) psychological morbidities associated with gender dysphoria. This is a very complex condition, and the vast majority of therapists simply are not competent to treat it, not least because doing so would involve standing up to bullying and psychological blackmail: ” … or else I”m going to kill myself!”

No, not true that “the worst mutilation would be in believing someone else’s body is really wrong.” Forestgreen had it right. Of course we will never believe a Lesbian’s body is wrong and should be male. Can’t be male anyway. Just mutilation making the surgeons, hospitals, and Big Pharma even more rich.

I wonder how much the mother is behind this. Probably always wanted a son to brag about.

Doesn’t sound like she’s aware she’s likely to get the cartoon chipmunk voice.

No, this is NOT “a complex condition.” This is just another girl/woman who is a self-hating Lesbian and has been influenced to think she can become male and everything will get better. “Gender dysphoria” is a myth. It all become clear if you think about the trans cult epidemic with Radical Feminist politics. Therapists generally do not have a good record of being the friends of Lesbians. How or why we as a people could trust the same money-making “profession” who not long ago (and mostly still do) gave us drugs, shock treatments, and lobotomies and declared us mentally ill for loving other women and refusing to bond with our oppressors?

Really sad. This is some parent with a little girl that may or may not be gay and is tomboyish (as we used to say). The parent wants attention and to have a “very special” child , and she is a very special mother. And I don’t need to walk in her shoes to make that judgment. I am sure this mom’s ego is all tied up in this, “trans” is much cooler than little lesbian and garners so much more. I took the “where it counts” as what Freud called penis envy, that long forgotten condition that I think is at play with these kids. Children should not be sexualized or “gendered” they should not be given hormones or be applauded when the come out to the whole school. They should be supported taken care of and not put up on You Tube. All of it is child abuse and will lead to tragedies. People may go “oh wow how brave” now but those people will not be living with the consequence.

I normally don’t like posting things to groups that I am not apart of. I just wanted to start a discussion if you don’t mind. The point is I don’t understand why you’re speaking for her, and I do agree that Andrew’s body language seems less than confident. Were you not nervous when you came out though? Also understand that even among the LGB community Transgender people get a lot of stigma. Transgender encompasses a lot of people though and it is really just anyone who breaks out of social norms of gender.

The thing I really want to stress though is that anybody who is helping Andrew find some sort of identity needs to stress that this is Andrew’s choice, and Andrew’s body. Is it not right that Andrew have full body autonomy? So Andrew views them self differently than you do. You view yourself different than the general amount of society as lesbians, as feminists, or whatever label you attach to yourself. I do understand where you’re coming from though, because Andrew should be comfortable with their own body. Andrew should be told that they are beautiful not matter their flesh, or identity as a person. That is the problem I have if this is Andrew’s honest heartfelt decision why tear that person down, because you don’t agree with the practice? Another thing, aren’t you proving that being Trans* is a lot harder by making these comments. I don’t understand how you can ostarisize another group of people that differ from you, when you yourselves are seeking acceptance from other people in society. I do understand though that you don’t have to go through any special procedures to feel comfortable, no body augmentation, but if Andrew is doing this than they aren’t doing a damn thing for anybody else but for themselves. Andrew though needs to be told that they are beautiful regardless, and your gender is a social construct. If Andrew identifies as a straight male, but has the sexual characteristics of a female… so what? Let them be happy however they decide to live their life? Isn’t that not fair? People should be proud of who they are regardless just so long as they are not harming, or infringing on the rights of others.

If transgender is truly about breaking the socially constructed roles of males and females how can feminists, lesbians and gays not be Transgender? Consider this 30 plus States have passed amendments that same sex marriage is not culturally approved and that it violates the roles of men and women, that is transgender. The feminist label is not widely accepted amongst natal females and it carries a certain negativity to it. Again that makes feminism itself as going against the roles of males and females a form of transgender. I’ll go even further as a person born with cross sexed identity I never purposely have chosen to violate the roles of males and females so how is it I’m labelled transgender? i’ll tell you how and why so that we can be exploited by feminist and the LGBT to sell gender and queer theory as being valid even though with little thought they can be disproven.

My goal is to not upset anyone, and that is extremely hard since I am on a really taboo subject. That was an interesting fact that I only learned about just recently I never knew articles of clothing were restricted to gender by law. I don’t think garments should hold such bounds on people. I feel as though people dress as they please as long as it isn’t obscene.

Now onto your question… No. I wouldn’t deal with absolutes here, because we’re dealing with a historical issue. So not ALL women and feminists are transgender. Now for my current definition, (I obviously need to tweak it… as you do have a point.) transgender does apply to those women who wore trousers. This is due to the fact they were currently break social norms for the time period. Since that time has passed, and it is no longer regarded which so taboo then I feel the women of today who wear trousers or jeans are normal. All I am trying to say and I apologize I truly don’t want to upset you or anyone I am just saying that gender is formed by society, and maybe we will move to a post-gender society? It would be interesting what problems we would face then, but I seriously doubt we will ever move to a post-gender society. A lot of things would need to take place, but it is an interesting idea. You should be free to love who you want to love.

Now onto your comment: “Women who fought for the right to wear slacks without being arrested are actually not women?” They are definitely women.My definition is flawed in that sense, but they are activists for women’s right. They are also activist on the fact that you shouldn’t be restricted in terms of clothing. Woman rights are human rights. People need to understand any form of oppression is wrong. By oppression I mean being restricted in something that is a choice deserved by the individual, and that affects the individual alone, and does not cause harm unto others.

@amym440 I have to agree, because that actually makes complete sense. So yes my definition is severely flawed. I can’t make an argument, but I don’t know if you’re necessarily being exploited. I think everyone wants overall what is best, and everyone has good intentions. I feel that hopefully we’ll all be able to get along. That people will stop fighting, and we’ll come to a consensus to what is okay for everyone. I’m an idealist, and anyway I just want to thank everyone for allowing me to speak. I apologize for spamming up your board, and I know that I am not an official member of your community. I just wanted to thank you for letting me share my opinion, and viewpoints. You have all been really nice.

Gallus I would hope you would agree throughout all of the different perspectives there is a problem with other people hanging labels on each other. While i do tend to favor a more scientific explanation of what makes me, me, I don’t believe that it is necessary to beat up other groups to do it. That marks a big difference between myself and an HBser. Just like you would accuse me of being an HBser a Transgenderist would accuse me of being a Transsexual seperatist. Again there are multiple distinctions between myself and Transsexual seperatist. Transsexual seperatist aren’t really seperatist at all since they wish to remain a part of the LGBT something I do not. Dana Lane Taylor aligned with Cathy Brennan something I did not support. My words to Cathy Brennan were I do not need your permission to identify as female or a woman. I removed Dana Lane Taylor from my friends list over it. Suzan Cooke made a huge stink over my protesting the transgender day of remembrance. If someone was truly a “Transsexual Seperatist” why would they complain about me protesting the TDOR? I view myself as simply a woman of transitional history or more simply put a woman first. I may not agree with all your viewpoints but I support your right to have them.

Jesus. Who can possibly give a crap about the ridiculous in-fighting in these ridiculous on-line “communities”. “Dana doesn’t like me because I said something to Cathy”, “They called me a seperatist [sic] but I’m not”, “Suzan’s stupid”, “I protested”. Who gives a flying fuck? Honestly, how can you possibly think that anybody is interested in this crap? Or that it means anything?

Yeah, I don’t have a blog. And I don’t much care about the whole trans-identity stuff. It’s the relentless narcissism and inability to be anything but self-referential that’s so nauseating and derailing. Really, who cares about *you*? How *you* identify? Who *you* “are”? Nobody. Except you.

You clearly seek out these blogs and situations to create conflict so that you can constantly reaffirm your identity by saying it 1,000 times a day in response to conflict you created. You need to be in conflict about your “identity” because that’s how you know you have it — you’re constantly fighting about it and defending it. That’s how you get other people to even notice it. Otherwise, it’s just you, in a room, with an identity that doesn’t exist because nobody else cares or notices it. Without the self-created conflict, your identity doesn’t exist because nobody else would even notice it, much less talk to you about it, much less provide you an endless forum to self-affirm it.

Trans-identity needs society to exist. Specifically, it needs a society in conflict with it to exist. If larger society won’t provide that conflict, you’ll go looking for it. That’s all this is. Ever more far-flung “theories” about gender and brain and biology to ensure that somebody, somewhere, will always be fighting with you — thus giving you endless opportunities to continually recreate and reaffirm your identity. You just don’t feel like a woman unless somebody’s telling you you ain’t. Because, after all, what woman sits around by herself going “Gosh darn it! I am in synchronicity with my gender identity today!” Nobody. A gender identity needs somebody to notice it. And negative attention is better than no attention.

Here’s a better idea: get a parrot, train it to say “You’re not a woman”, then have your self-affirming conflicts with your parrot. It’ll serve the same function as your posts here.

Interesting food for thought, here. It definitely seems to fit pretty well as a description for a lot of the more identity-obsessed communities I find around the internet, where it seems everyone is completely obsessed with defining a specific label and category for themselves among the sea of others all doing the exact same thing, and endlessly arguing about boundaries and pseudo-academic theory about the whole thing. It’s the endless quest for the perfectly labelled box.